Last Tuesday Tech Tip we reviewed the Sales Process from Wikipedia listed as:

Prospecting / initial contact

Preapproach - planning the sale

Approach

Need assessment

Presentation

Meeting objections

Gaining commitment

Follow-up

We discussed the approach last week, and learned why it is so very important to the health of your business. However, to make sure that our approach actually leads to something productive and helpful to this potential client, we need to have a needs assessment ready to go.

The worst path is for your business to try and fit a client into your services, instead, your business should be discussing what the client actually needs. Your organization’s assessment tool is a constant work in progress, seeking to glean and analyze the potential client’s challenges. A sales person should be armed with this document or form because it helps the prospect talk about their challenges in detail; simultaneously, the form helps the rest of your team understand items discussed during the prospect interview.

Indirect Measures – Indirect assessment measures rely on individual perceptions to determine if a goal/objective has been achieved.

Step 5: Plan for the implementation of the assessment process

Who will be responsible for doing each step in the evaluation process? What will be the timeline for implementation? What other programs/offices will be assisting with the evaluation process? Who will be participating in interpreting the data and making recommendations and decisions?

Step 6: Plan for the communication of results

How will assessment findings be shared with relevant audiences?

For a more polished presentation of your assessment tool, check out these tools: